How to specify path to .emacs.d

[Barry OReilly <gundaetiapo@gmail.com>]

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Hi,
I'd like to know how to specify at the command line which directory Emacs
should use as the .emacs.d directory.  I see the --user flag, but it seems
unnecessarily inflexible.

One use case I would like this for is so as I can run Emacs unintrusively
on a colleague's computer.  --user flag doesn't serve the purpose for
technical reasons and I currently symlink their ~/.emacs.d to my .emacs.d
on a network share.  For my colleagues who also use Emacs, this creates an
awkwardness whereby I backup their .emacs.d before creating my symlink, and
then remember to restore it later when finished.

Another use case is that I'm getting my Emacs configuration to work on
Windows, and I discovered that Windows shortcuts are apparently .lnk files
and don't function like a symlink.  I'm unsure how to use a .emacs.d at an
arbitrary location, and only know to copy it to home instead.  This is
inconvenient because I want to use a .emacs.d straight out of a Mercurial
repo located elsewhere.

Specifying a .emacs.d location as a command line flag would be a big help.

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